Microsoft is our share tip of the week – 5 reasons to invest

In this week's share tip, Edmund Shing says the cloud computing revolution has proven a boon to US technology giants, in particular Microsoft.

One of the largest companies in the world by market value at $431bn, here are five reasons why Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is ripe for investment.

1) Number one software company: Microsoft is a world-leader when it comes to software. From operating systems such as Windows 10, productivity suites such as Office, cloud computing offers such as Azure, and the Xbox One video gaming platform, the company has a diverse range of products.

2) It makes a lot of money: The US tech giant generates a lot of cash, with $99bn of cash on its balance sheets at the moment.

3) Generous dividends: Dividends are very generous with a current yield of 2.65% (as of 30 October)

4) Growing dividends: As well as that, they company recent grew their dividend by 16% in the last quarter.

5) strong earnings: All of this is driven by very strong earnings due to cloud computing revenues which have doubled from over a year ago.

Edmund Shing is Global Head of Equity Derivative Strategy at BNP Paribas in London. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.